[583] Dr. McDermott summarizes the literature demonstrating the effects of the practice of polygyny on women, children and men, and concludes that many negative consequences touch upon each of the groups.
[584] Women in polygynous relationships are at increased risk of mental health problems as a result of higher rates of domestic violence, including sexual abuse, and co-wife conflict. They also tend to fare worse financially.
[585] Children of polygynous unions have worse outcomes than their monogamously born counterparts, as measured in a variety of ways. They face a higher risk of mortality. Young girls are often married to much older men and engage in early sexual behaviour, which has repercussions for their life expectancy and physical well-being. Where girls give birth frequently, shortened inter-birth intervals pose a heightened risk for various problems which can affect both the mother and the child.
[586] As for effects on men, Dr. McDermott notes that polygyny causes the proportion of young unmarried men to be high, up to a ratio of 150 men to 100 women. This leads to a need for a polygynist community (at least a closed one) to excise at least half of the junior boys, the so-called “Lost Boys”. “Junior boys who are thrown out of such societies at much greater rates in order to make a sexually asymmetrical system viable, often receive less education and achieve lower levels of employment, as they are forced onto a society with few skills and no social support” (at para. 33).
[587] Junior males who are unable to find wives represent “a class of largely poor, young, unmarried men who are statistically predisposed to violence” (at para. 34).
2011 BCSC
1588
Reference (re: Section 293 of the Criminal Code of Canada)
Call me a Modernist, but this is one aspect of ancient Traditionalism that can be left behind, never to return until either sex or sexual orientation has become far more flexible (under Transhumanism) than it is today.
